Ivory and Horn (ivoryandhorn) wrote in no_true_pair, @ 2009-02-02 19:00:00 |
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Entry tags: | ! 2009 eight characters challenge, author: ivoryandhorn, crossover: naruto/sakura gari, pairing: itachi/masataka |
Who Loves Thee Best (Naruto/Sakura Gari; Itachi/Masataka)
Title: Who Loves Thee Best
Author: ivoryandhorn
Fandoms: Naruto/Sakura Gari (AU)
Characters: Uchiha Itachi/Tagami Masataka
Rating: PG
Prompt: Week 4 - 6 (Uchiha Itachi) and 2 (Tagami Masataka) as the main characters in a fairy tale
Summary:
Notes: ~4000 words. Masataka finally gets nice things! Kinda. Also, I have no idea where that title came from whatsoever, just that it fits.
The Uchiha compound sprawled through the forest, its lands large enough to contain a small town—which, indeed, it did. A town that consisted solely of Uchiha uncles, aunts, mothers, fathers, cousins, nieces, nephews, and grandparents. The ruler of their little town and head of their clan was a man named Fugaku, a man of stern visage and upright bearing: he had once been a knight in the service of the great Hokage, until an incident with the nine-tailed demon fox Kyuubi—an incident yet whispered by mothers to their children in the dark of night—had killed him, and sent Fugaku limping home to tend his ancestral lands.
He soon took a wife as was proper for head of their clan—her name was Mikoto, a lady of consummate elegance, etiquette, and sweetness; her hair was black as a raven’s wing and her eyes like pools of ink. She was, they said, the best cook in all of the Uchihas’ town and certainly the loveliest of all the ladies. And if she occasionally looked over their sprawling lands with sorrow fixed on her gentle features, well, they were each and every one of them bound to duty and blood before love, and none thought her the weaker for it and indeed, admired her for the dedication she showed to her gruff, distant husband.
Some time after Fugaku had married, he and Mikoto were blessed with a child. The pregnancy was hard on the poor woman, and it was only through the great efforts of the clan’s healers that she survived the birth of their son. There was great celebration when the boy was born, and Fugaku in threw a grand feast to celebrate the continuance of his line. He even invited the great tailed beasts of legend to join the festivities, even—and this caused whispers all ‘round, you may be sure—the newest incarnation of the nine-tailed demon fox. Oh, it was such a festival—tables groaned beneath the weight of the feast the clan provided (for what one member of the clan had, they shared for the good of all, this was a fact), and wine from all corners of the country flowed free as river water. All were at ease and filled with laughter and as the head of their clan rejoiced, so did the entire clan. And if some looked askance at the beasts who had taken human guise to join the mortals for this one night, well, the Uchiha were born with blood in their eyes and flame in their blood and kept their katanas and kunai at hand.
At the stroke of midnight Fugaku and Mikoto proudly presented their son, and gave his name to the gathering: Itachi, they called him, as the babe gazed at them from his cradle with eyes too old for his round chubby face. The tailed beasts circled his cradle, and stepped forth one by one to give their blessings to the child, heir to the Uchiha clan and its legacy.
Scarcely had the eight-tailed ushi-oni Hachibi spoken when a blast of unmerciful flame seared through the banquet hall. From the shadows and smoke emerged a man—or at least a monster in the guise of one, for where his face should be was an orange spiral, and where his right eye should be was a black hole, and where his pupil and iris should have been burned all the flames of hell.
“So you thought to hide the next scion of my line from me, eh?” the man-creature rasped, for he was Madara, first of the Uchiha—first to lead, first to be exiled, reminder of the sins of generations past. “Well, well, well. We’ll see about that.”
Fugaku stepped before his wife, sword in hand, but Madara froze him in place with a single baleful look. Only the beasts stood strong before him, as the rest of the clan healed the wounded and stood stunned as puppy-dogs faced with the wolf who had sired their line eons ago.
Madara leaned over the cradle. Itachi gazed calmly back, too young to know his danger, too unearthly—for had he not been blessed by eight of the tailed beasts of the land?—to show his fear. “Tch,” the monster said. “The blessings of mere animals are nothing before my power.” He turned to the cowering guests and raised his voice, his words layered by the echo of rattling bones, the howls of unquiet dead, the crackle of burning bodies. “Let your heir grow strong, oh yes, let arrogance and pride be his due. And when he comes of age he will search for power, and in his greed he will prick his finger on a needle and die.” With a laugh, Madara vanished back into the shadows from whence he came.
Fugaku collapsed as if he had been a puppet with sudden-cut strings and Mikoto buried her lovely face in her fine, pale hands, for she could not bear the thought of losing her only child when she knew she could birth no more. “What shall we do?” she wailed.
“Don’t cry,” the ninth beast broke in. In this new incarnation, Kyuubi was kinder than any tailed beast had ever been in known history. His skin was tanned by the sun and his hair the color of sunflowers; now, in the most mortal of his guises, his eyes were the blue of a summer sky. His whiskered cheeks stretched in a reassuring grin. “That old man thinks he can undo all our hard work? Hah!”
Kyuubi turned to the little babe and laid his callused fingers over the child’s forehead. “I can’t undo all his work, sure, but don’t cry. Instead of dying, he will fall into a deep sleep, to be awakened by the kiss of one who loves him.” For a moment orange fire engulfed the cradle, vanishing as abruptly as it had been summoned and the great Nine-Tails smoothed the child’s blanket with callused fingers. “Don’t cry,” he said once more to the weeping Mikoto. “With a family this big around him, you shouldn’t have any trouble breaking the curse when it comes, eh?”
Despite his reassuring words, all present felt the weight of Madara’s wanton cruelty like a cloud over their heads, thick baleful smoke choking and smothering all who stood beneath it. The other beasts murmured their congratulations and reassurances and dire predictions, and left.
Fugaku slowly gathered his child from the cradle. “From this day forth,” he said, his voice heavy and slow, “let all needles be banished from the Uchiha lands.”
The clan guests murmured their assent and bowed their heads, for as their leader felt pain, so did all.